After a tense week at the Arts Council's headquarters in Dublin, details have emerged suggesting that its director, Ms Patricia Quinn, threatened to resign last month.

At a meeting on September 15th she was asked to leave while members considered the situation. She was then recalled and told the matter "was not a resignation issue".

However the Arts Council chairman, Dr Brian Farrell, said in a letter to The Irish Times last week that Ms Quinn had not "ever offered to resign her position as director of the council". He was responding to an Irish Times report published a week ago.

According to the minutes, which have been seen by The Irish Times, Ms Quinn was requested to leave the meeting by Dr Farrell when strong divisions arose between her and Arts Council members over a pilot project proposal to concentrate funding on some arts groups for a limited period.

Dr Farrell suggested the proposal go ahead. Council members wanted it stopped, and Ms Quinn said she would have to consider the implications of such a decision for her professional judgment.

It was at that point, 5.22 p.m. on September 15th, that Dr Farrell asked her to leave the meeting while her statement was considered. At 6.04 p.m. she was called back. Dr Farrell read an agreed statement into the minutes. It began: "The Arts Council acknowledges and respects the contribution of the director and the staff in the development of the Arts Plan and the work of the Arts Council. The council wishes to make clear its view that the current issue is not a resignation issue . . ."

Speaking yesterday, Dr Farrell said he regarded all matters pertaining to the Arts Council as confidential. "I do not think any good has been done to the council by rumour and speculation, and I don't propose to say anything at all," he said. Pressed on the resignation matter he added: "I have said everything I am going to say."

Ms Quinn said yesterday she was "happy the chairman has corrected the record, and beyond that I do not consider it appropriate to comment further".

This week members of the Arts Council said that what they had been discussing during Ms Quinn's requested absence from the September 15th meeting was her threat of resignation.

The current difficulties at the Arts Council apparently centre on problems of communication. For example, members first became aware of a senior officer's resignation through a newspaper report.

And a special meeting of its steering committee on October 8th followed another newspaper report on October 1st. It carried details of a review which was critical of the implementation of Labour Court recommendations at Arts Council headquarters. The review, by the Rights Commissioner, Ms Janet Hughes, was dated "June 29th" (1999).

The meeting of the council's implementation working group on September 8th was called when members became aware of the contentious pilot project proposal.

Arts Council members say they are being informed of what they consider their business in oblique ways. "Things have never, ever, been like this. It used to be a happy ship," said one source at the council's headquarters. Things began to go wrong "six, eight months ago".

RECENTLY council members have not been slow to express their displeasure. The minutes of the September 15th meeting record Dr Farrell as saying that "he was also sensitive to expressions of anger, disappointment and frustration, which were clearly articulated, at last week's meeting [of the implementation working group]".

He "accepted that the failure to convene a plenary meeting immediately after the announcement of the Government's response to the Arts Plan 1999-2001 had been a mistake for which he took full responsibility", according to the minutes.

The same minutes record Ms Quinn as saying "she fully understood [council] members' perception of alienation from policymaking and decision-making but could not accept a construction being put on her style of management, in this period of change, which suggested that she or her staff would seek to keep members `in the dark'."

And, under the heading "Minutes of meeting of implementation working group of 8th September", it is recorded that amendments would be inserted in specified paragraphs. Three of these read "[arts] organisations had said that they are not free at all to speak to [council] members . . . The embarrassment of members was at not being informed by council staff about the pilot groups . . . that the Arts Council is being considered as a rubber stamp".

Council members also expressed reservations about "the tone" of the minutes of the September 8th meeting. They suggested they were "bland and did not adequately reflect the strength and depth of feeling expressed by the members . . . Points of grievance expressed by members were that the minutes did not accurately reflect the impact on them of the decision by the executive to proceed with the pilot group exercise without having advised members, and the apparent failure of the chairman and director to appreciate the seriousness of the situation."

Meanwhile some Arts Council members are particularly concerned about the situation at headquarters in Merrion Square where staff morale currently is said to be low.